A World Apart From You
by DarkDefender89
Summary: AU Clark and Pete are football players Lana is an outcast Whitney is Chloe's boyfriend.
1. Chapter 1

(_**Summary:** AU starting in the first season. Lana is not a cheerleader; she is an outcast and a loner that no one wants to talk to and everyone makes fun of her. Only one person, Clark, sees her for what she is: exotically beautiful and pure hearted and innocent. Clark is a football player and Chloe is a reporter and a cheerleader. Whitney is Chloe's boyfriend. Pete is just….Pete….but Pete knows Clark's secret)_

**1**

Clark Kent had finally convinced his stubborn, dogmatic dad to allow him to be on the football team. There were conditions, of course, but Clark had agreed because he wanted to fit in. He wanted to feel normal; though he knew normal was one thing he would never be. He wanted to feel human and real even though he _wasn't_ human. At first, his mom hadn't agreed. She had thought it was too dangerous. And really, it was. It almost wasn't worth it.

But then he remembered what middle school had been like: always standing on the sidelines, hiding in the shadows and lurking on the outside. He had always felt invisible. And then of course were the jokes, and the cruel laughter. He had felt taunted and haunted. He didn't want to be a looser anymore. Clark Kent had made up his mind. Even if it was crazy.

And it was crazy. It wouldn't work. But Clark knew that if he played normal, if he bumped into someone, or if someone bumped into him, all of that person's bones would shatter. And Clark wasn't going to let that happen. He didn't want to be responsible for someone else's pain. So he decided to play in his weakened state, with a very small amount of kryptonite in his pocket. It hadn't been his father's idea; it had been his; but it was the only way his father would sign the form and let him play football. The pain was unbearable but Clark didn't really care. He wasn't playing football for the fun of the game. That's one thing it sure wouldn't be: fun. But he didn't want to be the looser he was last year.

Clark wished he could actually play the game for the thrill of the game and have fun and actually play good, but that obviously wasn't going to happen. He tried out for the team in his normal state, though, so he made the team easy.

Clark, Chloe, Whitney, and Pete sat in the cafeteria during the lunch, talking. Chloe was raving about her latest crazy journalism idea. She had many of them. Often they were spastic and crazy and weird but more often than not they proved to be true. Go figure. Whitney changed the subject. Pete, Clark, did you two get your forms signed? Both boys nodded. Pete looked at Clark. "How'd you get your Dad to agree? Didn't he say…" Clark stared Pete straight in the eyes, and then whispered bleakly, "There's one way…….." At first, Pete didn't understand. "What, you forged it?!!?!" "Of course not!" Clark said, almost laughing. "Then what…" Pete started, "Oh………"

"No," Pete said, "You can't do that. It's too dangerous." "It's the only way, Pete. Do you really think I want to?" Clark replied. "There has to be another way…." Pete started.

"WHAT in the world are you guys taking about. Could someone fill me in because I fell off the train a long time ago," Chloe said.

Clark and Pete looked at each other. Chloe didn't know yet. "Do you want to tell her?" Pete asked Clark. "Tell me what?" Chloe demanded spastically but light-heartedly. "That…." Clark started, "Pete and I are trying out for the football team." "Oh," Chloe said, dully, having hoping to find out something more exciting and maybe even weird. Chloe was practically married to the concept of weird. Except, of course, for the fact that she had a boyfriend….Whitney, the captain of the football team.

(Later in the afternoon, at Pete's house) "Were you serious?" Pete asked Clark. "Yes," Clark said. "But I don't see how it would even work, " Pete said, "You can't even stand up when you're around the meteors….how would you play football?"

"I don't know. But my dad doesn't want the other players to get hurt. He won't let me play any other way. Believe me, I don't want to, but it's the only way…"

"But how will you make the team" Pete asked. "I'll go to the try outs in my normal state, silly," Clark said, "Easy."

Meanwhile, Lana was sitting in her house on her bed, dreading another school-year of being alone and taunted. Her raven-hair fell down to her waist. Why couldn't anyone see her?

Of course, she had a secret. Lana Lang wasn't human. She came to Earth in a meteor shower even before the first one that hit Smallville. Then she had been adopted, and the second meteor shower killed her adoptive parents. She hadn't remembered at first, but slowly the memories came back to her, and then the powers started coming…..super-strength, invulnerability, super-speed…and there were more to come. Lana could feel it in her unbreakable bones.

Of course, there was one thing that could make her weak. Kryptonite. Her Aunt Nell (not biologically her Aunt, of course) had made a necklace out of the meteor that killed Lana's adoptive parents. That was before she knew that the stuff was poisonous to Lana. But sometimes, when Lana wanted to feel human and vulnerable and felt depressed about her adoptive parents being dead and not knowing who her real parents were and feeling alone, she wore the necklace. Not often, but sometimes. The stone made every muscle in her body ache, but it was also beautiful. Everything in life was about change. Sometimes its painful; sometimes its beautiful; but most of the times its both. Lana didn't want to despise something just because it was painful. What kind of person would she be if she could never feel? Her soul was already filled with apathy; she simply didn't want apathy to consume her soul completely.

Somehow Lana always managed to take the necklace off before it was too late. She knew that what she did was dangerous but she was careful. Sometimes she would go to her parents' gravestone and then take the necklace out of the lead box and put it on and talk to her adoptive parents. They couldn't really actually respond to her, but she knew that they could hear her, from their sanctuary in heaven.

Lana reached over to her dresser and looked at the lead box. Not today. Today, she wasn't up for it.


	2. Chapter 2

Chloe smiled, her arm around her boyfriend, Whitney. Her phone rang.

"I have to answer this one," Chloe said, kissing Whitney on the cheek, reaching for the phone.

"Hi, who is it?" she asked as she picked up the phone.

"It's Pete," the person on the other line said.

"What is it?" Chloe asked. "Are you and Clark really going to try out for the football team?"

"Yeah, why?" Pete asked.

"Nothing, except that it's _crazy,_" Chloe said.

"You're crazy," Pete said.

"I know. Not everybody gets that lucky," Chloe said.

"What do you mean?" Pete asked.

"To be crazy. It's a good thing. To know what you want and go for it. To not care what anyone else thinks," Chloe said.

"Then why are you a cheerleader?" Pete asked.

"Hey, you were the one that said I was crazy….not me," Chloe said, giggling.

"Whatever," Pete said.

The phone line went dead.

"What was that all about?" Whitney asked.

"Nothing," Chloe said, letting herself fall into her boy's arms, embracing the warmth.

"I love you, you know," Chloe said.

"I love you to, babe," Whitney said to Chloe.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Lana sat on her bed, staring at her journal, looking back at the bazillions of entries accounting for all the times she was either ignored or made fun of. She put up an invisible wall barricading her soul, but the taunts and jeers still stung. Not physically, of course. She hated the fact that she couldn't feel, physically. That she wasn't human. That every one of them that teased her was right about her. They said it in mock; they would never believe it was really true, but they said things like, "I bet you're not even human." They also said things like, "go eat dirt" or "You're not worth anything. No one could possibly ever love you." It wasn't the words that hurt; it was the fact that _they were right_ that haunted her. She didn't want to be an unfeeling, apathetic robot. She didn't want to be a zombie, living for no reason, laboriously obeying rules dictated. She didn't want to be that Lana Lang: the Lana Lang that just let things happen; that just followed the crowd and _let_ them hurt her. But she didn't really have a choice. She couldn't just go kill them; that would be wrong.

So she did the only thing she could do: forced herself to feel. The only way she could ever feel was with the meteorites. Kryptonite.

All she wanted to be was normal. She wanted to be able to tell them that they were wrong; that _they_ were the ones who were freaks. She wanted to just scream. She wanted to scream that _they _were wrong; that _they _didn't know her…they didn't know what it felt like to be different, tormented, alienated. They didn't know what it felt like to not even have a warm shoulder to fall back on; someone to tell her that everything would be alright when obviously _nothing_ would be alright. They didn't know what it felt like to be completely, utterly alone in the world.

And they thought she couldn't feel, but she could. Even though she could only feel pain when around the meteor rocks, she could feel other things. Her soul; it probably felt more pain than any of theirs had put together. They had made sure of it. That cheerleader, Chloe, and all of her evil little friends who thought they could just toss her around and humiliate her. It wasn't fair. She knew that life _wasn't_ fair, but, nonetheless, she was getting pretty tired of it.

She got up from her bed and put the rock away. She decided to go to the forest and hang out; at least when she was hiding behind the branches of the trees, no one could see her. The woods always felt so peaceful and serene. Once she got to the woods (it only took her one second, since she has super speed), she gingerly walked over to the stream, taking her time, enjoying the beauty of the woods. She knew that dispersed across all of the woods of Smallville were the meteorite rocks, so she had to be careful. (Just because she wanted to feel like she was human sometimes, didn't mean that she wanted to die).

The woods were beautiful. She sat down by the stream and blew on the water, causing a ripple in the water. She stared at the fishies under the water; they were so peaceful.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Meanwhile, Clark was sitting in his barn, reading.

His thoughts were interrupted by a phone call. Caller ID said it was Pete; he answered it.

"Hi Pete," Clark said.

"Hi Clark," Pete said.

"Are you still planning to try out for the football team?" Pete asked.

"Of course," Clark said.


End file.
